WASHINGTONThe labor market in January registered weak gains for the second straight month, a slowdown that could heighten fears about the economic recovery and may lead some to call on the Federal Reserve to reconsider its easy-money strategy.

U.S. payrolls increased by a seasonally adjusted 113,000 in January, the Labor Department said Friday. Job growth improved compared with December's gain, which was revised up by just 1,000 to 75,000, but was well below last year's average pace. The November increase was recast up by 33,000 to 274,000.

The unemployment rate, obtained through a separate survey, fell to 6.6% last month from 6.7% in December, the Labor Department said.

So over last two months, less than 190,000 jobs have been created in total (85k average per month). And yet the unemployment rate has dropped from 6.9% to 6.6% during this time. Unbelievable corruption.

The “experts” only missed their prediction by 76,000 this month, after missing the number by 100,000 to the down side last month. Yep. those economists can really read the pulse of this economy, can’t they?

With the government’s new “unemployment” rate, it would appear that a lot of people living in the U.S. have decided to join Barry’s “fundamentally transformed” America and just stay home playing the guitar and writing poetry.

The Republicans can lead by offering all the incentives using regulations and tax code they want. It’s up to the private sector to follow. The question is a matter of trust. Can you trust the policies from DC the long run to remain stable while you build your business? And the writing is on the wall, we’re moving toward ‘democratic economic populism’. Where people will vote for largess from the treasury. Businesses are merely tax collectors for the government. They’re sitting ducks. Just a slight uptick in interest rates would cause an enormous increase in payments on the National Debt. And business knows the source where Big Gov will go. It’s coming. It’s just a question of when.

Any doubt that computers are doing all the “trading” should be completely eliminated by today’s action. It came right back up and literally almost off that graph within fifteen minutes. It’s jacking around at 1777 now.

27
posted on 02/07/2014 6:18:42 AM PST
by jiggyboy
(Ten percent of poll respondents are either lying or insane)

Here are the facts on Initial Claims. The average for the last 45 years is 363,000. Currently the 4WMA is 334,000 so this job environment is actually BETTER than average from an initial claims standpoint.

I've made countless comments in these economic threads about the anemic rate of growth. But there is growth. It is well below average for an economic recovery due to the stifling regulation from the Obama administration.

Nevertheless corporate profits are at record highs:

It could be better sure. But it has been a positive environment despite the government/regulation headwinds.

Ok, here’s what’s not computing with me regarding these U.S. Department of Labor statistics... For years, I’ve been informed that the U.S. economy needs to add roughly 150,000 jobs per month just to keep up with the rate of population growth. So given that the two most recent jobs reports reveal far fewer jobs being added than this, how exactly is the unemployment rate decreasing?? I get that folks who quit looking for work or retire are no longer counted in the U-3 unemployment census... But how does the labor participation rate supposedly INCREASE while the number of jobs created came in at only 113,000 (significantly lower than the 150,000 jobs needed to “break even”), yet the unemployment rate somehow manages to DROP again this month??

Not to mention, with an estimated 92 million(!) of the U.S. adult population currently not participating in the work force, how laughable is it that the U-3 now shows the economy approximately a mere 2 percentage points away from attaining what historically would be considered full employment (between 4-5%)???

Something just isn’t adding up here, folks. Given the rogue regime currently in charge of our labor department, I’d say we’re being hoodwinked yet again.

Feb 5, 2014 Posted on by KeyLargo 2014 January Job Cut Report: Planned Cuts Surge 50 Percent After falling to a 13-year low in December, monthly job cuts surged nearly 50 percent to kick off 2014, as U.S.-based employers announced plans to reduce their payrolls by 45,107 in January, according to the latest report on monthly job cuts released Thursday by global outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.

The 45,107 job cuts last month were 47 percent higher than a December total of 30,623, which was the lowest one-month total since 17,241 planned layoffs were announced in June 2000. January job cuts were up 12 percent from the same month a year ago, when 40,430 job cuts were recorded. The heaviest downsizing activity occurred in retail, where poor earnings led to a wave of job cut announcements from several national chains, including Macys, Sams Club, JC Penney, Sears, Best Buy and Target. Overall, retailers announced 11,394 job cuts in January; a 71 percent increase from the 6,676 retail cuts tracked in January 2013.

Last months retail cuts were the heaviest for the sector since last March, when 16,445 planned layoffs were announced. Holiday sales gains were relatively weak and many retailers achieved the gains by slashing prices on their products, which adversely impacted their year-end earnings.

The post-holiday job-letting in the sector was inevitable, said John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Retail employment will, in fact, fall further than the announced job cuts indicate. Starting in January, retailers started shedding the tens of thousands of temporary seasonal workers hired to help handle the holiday rush.

The announced job cuts, on the other hand, will impact full-time, permanent workers in the stores and at the corporate offices of these struggling chains, he added.

Then, we have the CBO projections: “ Washingtons official non-partisan bean-counter, the Congressional Budget Office, dropped a bomb. By 2024, says the CBO, Obamacare will reduce the size of the U.S. labor force by 2.5 million full-time-equivalent workers.”

This morning, we learned it had declined to 6.6%  the 23rd-straight month without an increase. As Brooking's and UMichigan's Justin Wolfers observes, the rate has dropped 1.3% over the past year  an insane acceleration from 2012's decline of just 0.3%.

"Only three other times in the past six decades has the unemployment rate fallen this far this fast: in the early 1950s, when growth averaged 6.7% per annum; in the late 1970s when GDP growth averaged 4.8%, and in the mid-1980s when growth averaged 5.2%," said Gluskin Sheff's David Rosenberg to the U.S. Senate Budget Committee earlier this week.

In those other three instances, growth was robust. This time around, he says, we should probably be concerned about what's causing the plunge.

"Today we accomplished this feat with only 2.4% growth which is disturbing because it means that it is not taking much in the way of incremental economic activity to drain valuable resources out of the labor market," Rosenberg continued.

Most economists attribute the decline in unemployment to the drop in the labor force participation rate (LFPR)  the measure of those employed or looking for work divided by the working-age population. And the drop in the LFPR has been due to a combination of aging demographics and an expanding group of discouraged workers walking away from the job market.

Rosenberg added in his testimony that the patchwork of state and federal benefits program might be distorting the signal sent by the LFPR as it may be incentivizing some people to stay out of the labor market.

"One theory that deserves examination is that we may have an abundance of separate benefits programs that provide for the disenfranchised in a very piecemeal and inefficient manner that are also perhaps abused or overly relied upon by some, which may lead to a distortion of work incentives," he said.

Still, if we get to the point where we have a shortage of labor, we could see wage growth surge, which in turn could stoke inflation and pressure corporate profit margins.

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